Prior art detectors, primarily for detection of infrared radiation, generally fall into the classes of cooled detectors (those which are generally cryogenically cooled to 77 degrees Kelvin) and ambient temperature detectors which generally operate at a particular temperature which is in the vicinity of normal room temperature. The prior art ambient temperature detectors generally require a very accurate thermoelectric cooler (TEC) servo controller to maintain a very accurate single temperature of the detector. The detector is then calibrated at this temperature and the responsivity and offsets of the detector are also corrected at this temperature, resulting in a much more predictable situation. A problem with maintenance of the detector at a constant ambient temperature is the requirement of large amounts of power by the servo loop to maintain this constant temperature and costly operation in general. Other prior art detectors use a chopper, or method of interrupting scene information to compensate for drifts. This approach has cost and size penalties.